A Work in Progress

August 20: Listening Notes

After being spoiled by 'mild' (warm but not oppressively so) weather, reality has once again set in and it has been a sticky warm last few days.  I erroneously thought the worst of the summer heat was behind us, but I really should know better by now.  Just in time for school to start, the heat of summer is back.  So the proper book post I had planned to write is going to have to wait for another day (or maybe the weekend as I don't foresee much energy coming out of a long workday for the next few 90+F days that are to come). 

Instead let me tell you about the audio books I have just loaded onto my MP3 player.  I have an Audible subscription so each month I get a token that I can use towards a digital audio book.  Strangely (maybe not so strange really) I much prefer digital audio books and digital music over CDs.  I have no attachment to physical CDs and not having bought any in years doesn't bother me at all.  Now books are something else altogether (though I have been reading a couple of books on my 'work' ipad--and am finding it quite handy at the gym).  How did I rack up five tokens?  Has it really been so long since I exchanged one for a book?  Apparently so. 

I had been listening to Graham Simsion's The Rosie Project, but for some reason have just been too lazy to pull my player out on my walks to finish listening, though the audio has been quite entertaining.  And it's nice listening to an Australian accent.  I'm very picky about readers, but in this case the voice really works well with the story.  Last time I made an audio 'purchase' I also loaded Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, which I completely forgot about.  I have heard good things about the book and with a setting of a small coastal town in Italy in the 60s (it's one of those parallel stories with a contemporary setting, too), how can you miss.  It seems like perfect summer listening.

However, now I have three new books to add to the selection.  I think I might start listening to Rhys Bowen's Her Royal Spyness.  It's the first in a series of mysteries set in 1930s London featuring a minor royal who must work despite her title.  Georgiana (Georgie) Charlotte Eugenie is a 'madcap' heroine and it sounds like just the sort of fluffy story (which includes mischief making, murder and maybe a dash of romance on the side) to help keep my mind off the stickiness outside.

I had checked out Elizabeth Gaffney's When the World Was Young from the library but it (you won't be surprised to hear) went back unread.  "Acclaimed author Elizabeth Gaffney’s irresistible novel captures postwar Brooklyn through Wally’s eyes, opening on V-J day, as she grows up with the rest of America. Reeling from her own unexpected wartime tragedy and navigating an increasingly fraught landscape, Wally is forced to confront painful truths about the world—its sorrows, its prejudices, its conflicts, its limitations. But Wally also finds hope and strength in the unlikeliest places."  It sounds a little more substantial than the Bowen, so I am curious about it.

And last but not least I loaded The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood, which is another book I had my eye on when it first came out.  I think it might fit in well with my upcoming RIP reading, too.  "When bright and bookish Oscar Lowe follows the haunting sound of an organ into the chapel of Kings College, Cambridge, one day, his whole world changes. He meets a beautiful and seductive medical student, Iris Bellwether, and her charismatic and troubled brother Eden. Oscar is seduced by their life of scholarship and privilege, but when Eden convinces Iris and her close-knit group of friends to participate in a series of disturbing experiments, Oscar fears he has entered into something from which he cannot escape."  As a matter of fact I am definitely going to hold this one in reserve for September/October.  Already I am looking forwar to cool (not cold, mind you) crisp days with leaves crunching underfoot. 

I did lots of 'sampling' before choosing these three so I hope they are as good as my first impression of them was.  They are all books I had wanted to read or try out in any case, and I liked what little I heard, so now I shall try my luck.  I'll start with Her Royal Spyness.  They will go with me to Colorado in another week, as I will have a long car ride with about eight hours that will need to be filled in some way or another.

I have plenty to choose from, but I can't resist asking anyway (always good to have a few titles tucked away in reserve)--have you listened to anything good lately?

Teaser Tuesday: Maigret in Holland

I've read a few novels by Georges Simenon but only one Maigret mystery.  I've picked up his 1940 mystery, Maigret in Holland, which is doing double duty for me since it will count as one of my vintage mystery choices and with its Dutch setting will fit in nicely with the rest of my "Netherlands" reading as well. 

Simenon was an interesting man, not least because he was very prolific.  I think he wrote close to two hundred books during his lifetime and he was a fast writer (though with such an output he would have to be, wouldn't he?) and well regarded.  The TLS had an interesting article on him last May.  He "wrote extremely quickly, disliked 'literature' and had a voluptuous interest in both fame and money, was admired by, among others: Gide, Cocteau, Céline, Anouilh, Colette, Mauriac, Somerset Maugham, Thornton Wilder, T. S. Eliot, Henry Miller and John Cowper Powys."  I'd say that's a pretty respectable fan base.  Apparently it was thanks to a combination of qualities that helped create his success and notoriety.

"His admirable positives: swiftness of creation; swiftness of effect; clearly demarcated personal territory; intense atmosphere and resonant detail; knowledge of, and sympathy with, les petites gens; moral ambiguity; a usually baffling plot with a usually satisfactory denouement. As for his enviable negatives: Simenon got away with a very restricted and therefore very repetitive vocabulary (about 2,000 words, by his own estimation) – he didn’t want any reader to have to pause over a word, let alone reach for the dictionary. He kept his books very short, able to be read in one sitting, or (often) journey: none risks outstaying its welcome. He eschews all rhetorical effect – there is rarely more than one simile per book, and no metaphors, let alone anything approaching a symbol. There is text, but no subtext; there is plot but no subplot – or rather, what appears to be possible subplot usually ends up being part of the main plot. There are no literary or cultural allusions, and minimal reference to what is going on in the wider world of French politics, let alone the international arena. There is also – both admirable positive and enviable negative – no authorial presence, no authorial judgement, and no obvious moral signposts. Which helps make Simenon’s fiction remarkably like life."

In other words his books are entirely gulpable, entertaining.  As for the cultural allusions, I'm not so sure about that reference.  The novels may be slim, but they certainly do reflect something of the time and place while there is perhaps no grand statement about societal ills, I think the reader can still take something away from his stories.

I'm only a few chapters in (and I do hope to easily finish this by the end of the week--I am actually finding it a very engaging...and yes, gulpable...story so far), but I am forming quite a picture in my mind of the little town of Delfzijl, where a French citizen is being held for questioning in the death of a local man.  Inspector Maigret is in this extreme northeast town of the Netherlands in only a semiofficial capacity.  It's actually Maigret's impression of Delfzijl which is the teaser I want to share. 

"Right from the start, he found Delfzijl disconcerting.  At dawn he had found himself rolling through the traditional Holland of tulips.  Then came Amsterdam, which he already knew.  But Drenthe, an endless stretch of heather, had taken him by surprise.  A twenty-mile horizon sectioned by canals."

"And what he now came to was something that bore no relation to the ordinary picture postcard of Holland.  It was far more Nordic than anything he imagined."

"A small town.  At the most, ten or fifteen streets paved with beautiful red tiles, as regularly laid as those of a kitchen floor.  Low houses of brick, ornamented with a profusion of carved woodwork painted in cheerful colors."

"The whole place was like a toy, all the more so because it was completely encircled by a dike.  In this dike were openings with heavy lock gates, which were no doubt closed during spring tides."

"Beyond was the estuary of the Ems River, and then the North Sea, a long silver ribbon of water.  Ships were unloading their cargoes under the cranes on the quay.  In the canals were innumerable sailing boats, big as barges and as heavy, built to withstand the open seas."

Perhaps Cath will be able to tell us whether it is indeed and accurate reckoning of the town.  I wonder why Maigret finds it disconcerting?  Perhaps it doesn't match his image of what it should be like?  The beauty of books like this is getting an image of a place and the people and this is all the more interesting since it is filtered through the eyes and perceptions of a Frenchman.  It's curious that so far there is no mention of the war, though the book was published in 1940 and Rotterdam was only bombed in May of 1940 with the Dutch army surrendering shortly thereafter.  And as the TLS article noted that Simenon kept mum about politics in his books, so maybe not surprising after all. 

August is flying by and I have several books underway for my Reading Netherlands summer project.  I think I might devote the majority of my reading time to these books, though a few other books will need some attention as well.  Don't be surprised if you hear more about my reading in the next couple of weeks.  I'd say a class trip to The Netherlands would be in order next, but it may have to be virtual only.  Someday I will get there, however.  And my reading of Dutch authors will continue for the rest of the year. 

Vintage Bingo Redux

So I've been trying to organize my reading piles this past weekend.  I'm midstream in so many books and reading projects, and with the year quickly speeding by, I wonder if there is still time to finish most of them and salvage earlier plans and ambitions.  I have been reading (literally am in the middle of quite a few) lots of mysteries this year, but none of them at the moment will count towards my vintage mystery reading (you can see the Bingo card here that I am working on).

I'm opting to fill the six spots down from the G as I've read two so far that will fit--Agatha Christie's The Man in the Brown Suit for a mystery with a color in the title, and Josephine Tey's The Man in the Queue with a theatrical setting.  Now it's time to think about which books will fit the rest of the slots (rather than my random reading so far).  Four books to read by the end of the year?  It sounds easy enough.  It's just the rest of the books I am reading or want to read that always throw me off.  But there is no harm in planning, right?

* * * * * *

Read one book set anywhere except the US or England.  I've picked up George Simenon's Maigret in Holland (which is being reissued this fall by Penguin with the title A Crime in Holland), which will do double duty as I finish up my Reading the Netherlands books. 

Read one locked room mystery.  I have two that would work.  I am leaning towards John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man, which is a classic from what I understand.  Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca would also work (but I am unsure where my copy is and am not sure if I am up to digging through bins in search of it--how lazy is that).  The latter is set on a country estate during a house party and the former has a snowy setting.

Read one academic mystery.  This one is easy as I have been wanting to try another Josephine Tey mystery.  While this is not an Inspector Grant mystery I have heard many good things about Miss Pym Disposes.  It is set at a girl's physical training college.

This leaves me with one slot, for which I am stumped.

Read one book that features a crime other than murder.  I am sure there are loads of them, but the catch is that any books I choose must have been written before 1960.  Mysteries usually mean murder is the crime, and nothing really comes to mind.  I'm leaning towards Bunny Lake is Missing by Evelyn Piper, which is about a child's disappearance.  It has the added advantage of being a noir thriller and tale of domestic suspense, so perhaps I'll give it a go. 

It's always good to have ideas in reserve, so suggestions for good books always welcome.  Now to sort through the rest of my reading and end of the year plans.  Obviously my plans are always pretty loose (or my reading wouldn't be all over the place like it is at the moment . . .).  What about you?  Thinking ahead, making plans, tidying up old plans?  Or not thinking about it at all and just reading at whim?  I sometimes think I 'think about books and reading' too much.  Or is that even possible?

Short Story Sunday: A Spot of Gothic

Jane Gardam's "A Spot of Gothic" in her collected stories is a perfect short story for fall and for RIP reading which just around the corner.  As a matter of fact I read it several years ago as it appears in a few other collections.  I have a handful of stories that I like to revisit and this is easily one that I could add to it.  I don't suppose what happens in the story is a case of déja vu exactly, but the unexpected and the uncanny happens.  Less scary or chilling but nicely atmospheric and definitely mood setting is this one.

It happened one night on a lonely road under a full moon after a dinner with friends.  Maybe the meal was too rich or a little too much wine was drunk, or the light hit in just the right way, but Mrs. Bainbridge sees something rather frightening. 

"I went flying through High Thwaite, hurtling through Low Thwaite and the same landscape spread out still in front of me--endlessly deserted, not a light in any cottage, not a dog barking, not a cry of a bird.  It was just after what appeared to be the loneliest part of the road that I took a corner rather faster than I should and saw the woman standing in her garden and waving at me with a slow and decorous arm.  You could see from the moonlight that her head was piled up high with queenly hair.  I think I was two miles on before I really took this in and I was so shaken by it that I stopped the car."

Mrs. Bainbridge is living temporarily in this northern village while her husband is away for a short stay in Hong Kong.  Not being overly fond of big cities or crowds she decides to remain behind.  It's a friendly enough village and the residents have taken her under their wing concerned that she's bored on her own.  Two local sisters invite her to Mealbeck, a big Gothic house--"magnificently turreted, slightly idiotic" that is a cross between the Brighton Pavilion and the Carpathians.  With a house like that it seems almost a given that she would come across the unusual.

"She had been waving kindly.  Not afraid.  Not asking.  Not even beckoning.  She had been waving in some sort of recognition."

"I had never been so frightened in my life."

The next day she returns to the spot where she thinks she saw the woman and at first can't find the right place.  The houses all look the same and she must find a spot in the road she recognizes, get out of the car and walk back.  At first, nothing.  And then she feels as though she is being watched.  And there she is again.  She looks as if she had walked out of an old Vogue photograph.  Waved hair, pearls and kid gloves--"the trappings of the whole figure were all the very soul of order and confidence.  The figure itself, however, almost yearned with uncertainty and loss."

The woman asks the time and when she hears the response is thrown into a state of misery. 

"The dreadful sense of loss, the melancholy, were so thick in the air that there was almost a smell, a sick smell of them."

There's a noise.  A distraction, and when Mrs.  Bainbridge looks back the woman in gone again.  When she asks the local doctor at the woman, what he tells her disconcerts her so much, Hong Kong began looking rather more attractive than originally thought.  As ghost stories go, this is a good one--one for the the faint of heart!

Next week another story or two by Jane Gardam.  Next up is "The Tribute".  I'll keep reading from the collection through the end of the month and then it will be time to shift gears and look for spooky stories for September and August.  I hope to finish the Gardam collection before the end of the year.  It is a pretty hefty collection with nearly thirty stories, but I never like to rush a story collection so will just keep chipping away at it. 

If, by the way, you've come across a good (relatively new) collection of good stories suitable for RIP reading, do let me know.  I will have to share my own top ten or so stories and perhaps will revisit a few of them, too.

* * * * *

I loved this week's (August 4 issue) New Yorker story, "Action", by Paul Theroux.  You can read the story, too, here.  Paul Theroux is another author who I feel as though I should have read (but haven't yet gotten around to), so this little taste is hopefully just a teaser.  Thankfully there were no deaths this week or illicit drug taking and it was wonderfully evocative with its 1950s Boston setting.  The story is about a young man, a boy really, venturing out in the world on his own for the first time and the getting of wisdom.  The son of a widower, he works in his father's shoe store and is sent out to do an errand.  The journey he makes is through a Boston he knows, but has never experienced entirely on his own, and the result isn't entirely a happy one.

"The way my father worried about me made me think I was dangerous."

His father is trusting but gruff.  Albert thinks of him as two different people, the father he is to him and the man he is to others.  Of course it works the other way around, too.  The beauty of the story is the surprise at the end--he doesn't know his father as well as he thinks he does.  In a way, this is a picaresque tale since the errand takes him on an adventure of his own devising but one that doesn't work out as well as when he set of on adventures with an older, maybe not entirely wiser, but certainly  more experienced friend. 

I'll be looking for Paul Theroux's forthcoming short story collection, Mr. Bones, which is due out late next month.  I'm just a short story away from being (save one earlier fiction issue) caught up with my New Yorker short stories.  There might still be time to squeeze it in tonight!  I may not be doing as well with the rest of my reading this year, but I have actually managed to read my weekly New Yorker story(ies). 

Weekend Reading Plans (in pictures)

I have a (hopefully) busy weekend ahead of me filled with reading.  A few plans (in pictures) . . .

I'll be going here to swap out books (as I type there are four on the hold shelf--I try and return an equal number so the pile doesn't get too towering).  The photo is old by the way, so please disregard the snow (and yes, that is my public library across the street in the background).

I'm nearly finished reading these and hope I can turn the last pages in both books, though I have an ambitious weekend ahead of me as you can see, so will be happy to make steady progress.

A few short stories will be read in anticipation for Sunday's post.

Always exciting . . . I'll be starting these.  The top is going to do double duty--for my Reading The Netherlands project as well as my Vintage Bingo (more on both later), and the bottom is the book Stefanie and I chose to read together next.  A good Victorian novel for fall, right?

I'll be watching this film this weekend, also for my Reading The Netherlands project.  It will be cool to finally hear Dutch spoken.

And I need to do something about these.  This is the state of my night table.  My reading has been all over the place this year and I need to organize myself and make some sort of plan on how I am going to tackle reading and finishing them by the end of the year.  (There is also a shelf underneath just barely poking out that has a few more books . . . ).  I want to read each and every one and am enjoying them, but I don't have enough free time to spend with them as I would like.  The usual case of eyes (and desires) being far larger than stomach.  (A few will be going with me to Colorado soon).

What are your weekend (reading) plans?  However you spend your time, have a great weekend.

Itchy Fingers: Back to Stitching

After a short hiatus from stitching this summer, I am back to work!  I have pulled out a languishing project that was meant for someone a year ago.  It's rarely a matter of not being in the mood to stitch but more an issue with free time.  Limited free time and too much I want to accomplish--that's my problem.  I have yet to find a really happy balance, so I just squeeze in the things I want to do (and enjoy doing) amongst all the things I need to do (and that I probably don't much enjoy doing--we all know how that goes!). 

So this first photo is only a teaser.  I am mostly working on this project.  As it is something I am making for a friend (and hopefully it will be in the mail before the first official day of fall), it is the project I spend most of my stitching time on.  I had planned on finishing it quite some time ago, but I think the season simply passed and I couldn't get the enthusiasm going to complete it.  Now that I am looking forward to fall, and it is the perfect project for the moment.  I look forward to working on it each day with renewed interest!  Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, but I had to get close in order to just show a small section of an already small project.  Once it is finished (and sewn together) and in the hands of the recipient I will share the whole design here.

I've not made a lot of progress on my bee sampler, but there are a few new additions since last time.  The border is nearly finished.  I've added another letter "B" and Mr. Bird is coming along nicely.  There is no rush as it is just for me, and as I am enjoying stitching it I might as well take my time, right?

But here is something new.  I don't think I ever shared my Quaker Heart with you.  I stitched this pattern once before (a freebie I got from PieceWork Magazine).  It is something I thoroughly enjoyed working on ("finishing" included) so much I have long wanted to make another one.  The first redwork pincushion I made also has my old initials and now that I have reverted to my maiden name, I wanted to make it again with everything up to date.  The floss is overdyed and the color is called "India".  What do you think, does it look like what you might imagine India would be color-wise?  It is warm and bright and energetic and I think it is very evocative.  I will finish it slightly differently this second time around.   

I need to get back to  my Halloween project, too, since the holiday is just around the corner.  It will make for good "mood stitching" with RIP reading beginning next month (and my reading list growing . . . ).  I plan on taking some stitching projects along with me to Colorado in a few weeks time.  I am not sure if I can stitch while sitting in a car (eight hours to fill in with books or stitching--going and coming), but I am sure there will be some extra time in the evenings to do a little stitching.  Something to look forward to.  Hopefully not so much time will pass until my next needlework update and I will have a few finishes (or maybe new projects) to share.

Reading . . . Colorado (& in search of books)

Guess where I'm going in a few weeks?  I suppose the title of today's blog post gave it away?  I had thought any chance of a 'go-away-somewhere-new-and-different' vacation was out of the question once I bought new furniture, but I am going to tag along with my sister and her husband for a long weekend in Estes Park, Colorado.  We'll be driving (it's about eight hours away from Omaha) and staying in a 'cabin' right on Fall River. 

You have no idea how in need of a nice change of scenery I am at the moment.  I haven't been to Colorado since I was a kid and went on a family vacation to Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota.  I can already picture myself with my feet up, sitting on the porch of the cabin overlooking the river--all blissful with a book in hand and peace and quiet, save the sound of a gurgling stream rushing by.  Maybe doing a little hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park (I'm told there is a wonderful and picturesque walk around Bear Lake) or shopping in downtown Estes Park.

This is all a bit sudden and last minute, so I've not even had much time to plan and think about traveling there and what I would like to see and do, but I am sure it won't take long to come up with ideas.  Is it a bad thing that I have already began mentally packing books for the long drive and the few days we'll be there?  It'll be a quick trip of five days but still plenty of time to do a few things and relax a little.  As it turns out there will be a Scottish Irish Highlands Festival going on at the same time I'll be there, but I have a feeling I might be busy with other things.  Maybe I'll see men in kilts?

You know I always like to read about where I am going so I will be in search of something good set in Colorado.  While I plan on taking 'in progress' books along with me (my reading has been all over the place--all year really--and I need to do something about it--but more about that another day), I wouldn't mind picking up a book or two to give a taste of the place between now and then.  I already have pulled out my books by Sandra Dallas (I went through a big phase reading every book by her I could get my hands on some years back) and it looks as though The Diary of Mattie Spenser is set on the Colorado Frontier in the mid-1800s.  I started reading her newest, Fallen Women, a while back and was quite enjoying it before it had to go back to the library and to the next person in line for it.  It's due out in paper just before I leave so I will try and get my hands on a copy to take with me.  I can also grab my copy of Willa Cather's Song of the Lark, which is set in a small Colorado town.  You never need to twist my arm to pick up a book by Willa as I totally admire her work, and truth be told I am always looking for a good excuse to read more of her work.

And, of course, suggestions are always most welcome!  Do you have a reading recommendation of a good story set in Colorado?  A little mood reading, something to make me feel like I'm already there is in order about now!  It gives me something to look forward to and something to draw out the pleasure of travel and seeing new places (thank goodness for stories, eh?)!

Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf

It is a talented writer who can make history come alive.  After hearing Andrea Wulf speak earlier this year, I had a feeling her writing would be equally as engaging, and it is.  I think I can easily add Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature and the Shaping of the American Nation to my (growing) list of favorite reads this year.  Who would have thought a book about Colonial America, the formation of a new government, early American politics, garden planning, and the science of botany could be so thrilling and exciting to read about.  Wulf makes it all so vibrant and interesting.  I feel like I now have an intimate view into the lives of these famous men (and in some cases their wives, too).  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison--they have all been such monoliths to me.  Great men who formed our country but were all a little untouchable and unknowable.  Wulf peels away the stodgy layers (dusts them off as it were) and shows them to be flesh and blood--both great in many ways, but also very human and at times flawed.  

This is the sort of book that reads fast but is also a book you want to slow down and try and absorb as much as possible of what Wulf shares about this era and these men.  I have so many pages dog eared and pencil marks in the margins I am not even sure where to begin and what to share with you most (there is far too much to cover in one post).  As with any good book on history Wulf has obviously done a copious amount of research (after the book ends there are an additional 130 or so pages more of appendices, notes, bibliographical material and an extensive index) but she treats her subject almost as a story.  It is very anecdotal in nature and while I hate to say this--it really almost reads like a good novel (as if plain history isn't exciting enough, there has to be a fictional story to keep things moving).  Reading this has almost been like being a fly on the wall of history and experiencing it as it happened.

What is interesting about Wulf is that she was born in India, lived in Germany as a child, and now lives in England.  She is a design historian and studied at the Royal College of Art and is not a gardener in the traditional sense.  When I heard her speak she mentioned she doesn't really have a green thumb and when she does 'garden' it is often in pursuit of growing the plants and flowers she is researching and writing about.  She brings to the book a unique perspective--writing about American history but as a European, and a (unsurprisingly) well versed one in American history and politics.  When she traveled in the US as a younger woman she hadn't thought of us as a nation of gardeners (not in the sense that the British are), yet her travels showed her how wrong her perceptions were. 

"On a sunny October morning, I stood on Jefferson's vegetable terrace, with straight lines of cabbages and squashes at my feet, and saw man and nature in perfect  harmony,  In the distance the horizon seemed to stretch into infinity; behind me was a manicured lawn with ribbons of flowers and, below, a romantic forest that crept into the gardens.  The magnificent view from the terrace across the arboreal sea of autumnal reds and oranges of red maples, oaks, hickories and tulip poplars brought together Jefferson's neat plots of cultivated vegetables and sublime scenery of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Jefferson had combined beauty with utility, the untamed wilderness of the forest with the orderly lines of apples, pears and cherries in the orchard, and colorful native and exotic flowers with a sweeping panorama across Virginia's spectacular landscape."

There are so many interesting things I am going to take away from this book, but I think one of the most basic is that America was truly founded on the idea of us being a nation of gardeners.  The Founding Fathers considered themselves to be first and foremost gardeners.  As each took their turn in office, by the end of their terms it seemed politics drained them and they were most happy to return to their lives and homes and especially their gardens. In a way the gardens of these men reflect their political ideologies and the direction they wanted to take this nation.  Self-sufficiency is one of the main reasons they felt America should be founded on farming and gardening--the need to not have to rely on others for our wants, desires and necessities.  To be independent of other countries.

I was also impressed by the radical way in which Washington and the others approached gardening.  They made it something uniquely American and new.  Everything accepted as classical and correct in terms of gardens Washington sort of turned on its head.  In both his own home, Mount Vernon, and in the design of the capitol, he strived to use those plants and flowers, bushes and trees that were indigenous to America.  And whereas gardens looked towards England and Europe in the design and even their direction, he changed it all.  He reoriented his gardens to look west rather than east.  None of this seems especially innovative to us, but at the time this way of thinking was revolutionary.  West was the way of the future (think, too, of Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark's expedition which Wulf also writes about).  Interestingly, too, it is John Bartram, a Pennsylvania farmer/botanist who supplied Europeans with American plants, which were in vogue at the time.

Wulf covers the period of the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention and the presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison.  She writes about Jefferson and Adams and their time spent abroad as diplomats, about Mount Vernon, Monticello as well as Peacefield and Montpelier--the Founding Father's homes/gardens.  She writes about the before and after of the Revolution (the after being so interesting--little seems to change--once the business of war was over and national politics took center stage the bickering began!), as well as America's westward expansion and even the burgeoning naturalist/environmental movement (even then attitudes about nature and how we use it and care for it were changing and becoming ever so slightly more enlightened).

This is a big breath of a book with so very much to take in and admire.  Wulf organizes it so well that it all just flows from one topic to another, one man to another, one story to another.  Needless to say she has piqued my curiosity about so many things on so many levels.  I already have two of her other books on hand--Brother Gardeners: A Generation of Gentlemen Naturalists and the Birth of an Obsession and Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens.  I believe she is working on a new book now as well.  And I have Ron Chernow's (very chunky) Washington: A Life, which I am eager to read.  Eventually I would like to read biographies of all four men (and Abigail Adams, too).  My list of 'want to reads' keeps getting longer and longer.  I read this along with Stefanie at So Many Books (I always do so much better with books when I have a reading buddy).  Click on over to read her thoughts about the book.  Highly recommended.

Short Story Sunday: The Sidmouth Letters

And now for a little something different.  As much as I have been enjoying the collection Fifty Great American Short Stories, I need a little break from it.  The Stories of Jane Gardam have been getting a lot of positive attention.  I mentioned it back in May and had been dipping into it and enjoying what I was reading but it's been a while since I picked it up.  I think it was just what I needed this weekend.  She's so good.  If you've not yet had a chance to read her (her longer fiction is superlative, too), do give her a try.  What better way to 'taste' someone's work than by reading a short story or two by them?  I'll make my way through the whole collection, though I am taking my time with it.  When it is a matter of a collection of stories by one author I like to dip into it now and then rather than gulp it down.  (I think, however, Gardam's stories are pretty gulpable in case you prefer them in one go).

I love reading diaries and I love reading letters.  There is something voyeuristic about the action of doing so.  It's less as a voyeur that I like them however, and more a matter of curiosity about a time or place or a desire to learn about someone's life than anything salacious on my part.  But diaries and letters are private things.  I do think that often diaries are kept with an eye towards posterity and with the understanding they are likely to be read by others.  But what of those letters or diaries that are intimate affairs meant to be kept between two people or in the case of a diary, for the diarist alone?  What if the person in question is famous and to know this intimate aspect of their life could assist in scholarly academic work.  If you found the letters of say, Jane Austen, what would you do with them?  This question is at the heart of the story "The Sidmouth Letters".

What I look for in a short story is the ability of the writer to tell a story of depth in a succinct manner.  A good short story writer will make you feel like you've been somewhere and done something in just a few pages.  Jane Gardam can do that well.  You've probably heard about the purported love interest of Jane Austen?  (You can read more about it here).  She visited the seaside town of Sidmouth and fell in love with a young man there and apparently he was as taken with her as she was with him.  Letters were written but in the end it came to nothing.  At least that is what is hinted at.  What if these letters really existed and they had been kept by a local family, unread (respectful of privacy).  What would you have done with them? 

This is where Gardam's story arrives at in the end (and no worries I won't give the actual ending away).  Where it begins is somewhere else entirely.  It begins with a death.  The death of a woman in contemporary times.  Reading the story is (and this is the pleasure for me with short stories) an unravelling of actions and desires.  A young British woman is invited to study in an American university.  She writes a piece on Jane Austen and her seaside romance and submits it to her professor who hands it back with only a "tick and 'interesting' on it."  A year later the piece is published with a few minor changes and her professor's name on it.

Is the story just about Jane Austen's letters, however?  Yes and no.  And the beauty of stories is that they are usually about something more.  In this case the more is the professor.  Gardam creates such a marvelous portrait of this man (who I have to say is the tiniest bit odious) that he is as 'interesting' as Jane Austen's letters are.  It's the professor and the interplay between he and this student that Gardam is telling us about.

The next story in the collection is "A Spot of Gothic" which I read a few years back, but I plan on reading again.  I suspect you'll be hearing about Jane Gardem here for a while.

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The New Yorker's (July 28 issue) short story is "Last Meal at Whole Foods" by Said Sayrafiezadeh, which you can read here.  Like Allegra Goodman's story a few weeks back, this is another story about dying.  You can read the author's Q&A here.

A Few Dutch Postcards

I've been meaning to share some of the postcards with you that I have received from friends or via Postcrossing.  There are loads of Dutch Postcrossers and I have several friends in The Netherlands with whom I swap cards or letters with.  I've picked a small sampling to post, but I have quite a few others that I have pinned to my bulletin board or propped on shelves or stored in bins.  I still love getting mail--little works of art and fun missives on the back.  I have quite a collection--it's always nice to find one in  my mailbox--it's a way of traveling somewhere beautiful and exotic from the comfort of my own home. 

This is from a Dutch Postcrosser and she tells me it shows in traditional old fashions.

This is one of the very first Postcrossing cards I ever received and it came from The Netherlands.  I have no idea who the artist is, but it looks like one of those papercuts--a silhouette.  I think it is very striking and I have kept it on display in my room ever since it showed up in my mailbox.

I love this image, too.  The artist is actually American, George Hitchcock, but he spent a lot of time in The Netherlands.  This is called "In Windmill Land".

An obligatory card of the King and Queen, Willem-Alexander and Maxima his wife.  They have three daughters.

Another favorite card.  This painting is by Frans Hals, "The Banquet of the Officersof the St. George Militia Company in 1627".  I love the cheeky fellow in the middle looking out at us.  I keep this propped by my bed.

This is Amsterdam--one of the famous canals.  I would love to live in a city with such proximity to water.  How cool would it be to live on a barge?  Someday I would love to visit Amsterdam. 

And another canal but this time in the city of Utrecht.  It is the Oudegracht (Old Canal).  Maybe I'll find something colorful and picturesque in my mailbox this weekend!